First produced in 3185, the Liberator-class Frigate is now the mainstay of the Liberation Fleets, completely supplanting the aging Zoriya
hand-me-downs from the Alkonost Republic. Built on Laana, these ships
exemplify the Liberation Worlds' aggressive naval doctrine: strong anti-frigate and
anti-cruiser offensive capabilities combined with a full Marine platoon
for boarding actions and groundside operations. The Liberator's
main weakness is against large numbers of fighters, but when operating
defensibly in a Liberated Worlds system, Type-81 Interceptors are
usually available for an anti-fighter role.

As
the Incunablis Machine Empire makes extensive use of fighter-based
harassment tactics, it is not surprising that the number one enemy of
the Empire, the Liberated Worlds, has produced a fighter specifically
designed to kill other fighters - in a word, an interceptor. While
almost totally ineffective against larger military craft, the Type-81
Interceptor can make short work of any Incunablis Fighter. These cheap
spacecraft are mass-produced by the Liberated Worlds, and stationed on
many local outposts, mines and stations as a countermeasure to fighter
harassment attacks.

The
Incunablis Machine Empire does not use its fighters against enemy
military craft. Rather, it uses them against under-defended enemy
strategic targets such as remote asteroid mines and research stations,
forcing the enemy to spread out its fleet over many disparate locations
in an attempt to stop these harassment attacks. The common tactic used
with these fighters is to Drill an Incunablis Carrier into the oort
cloud of a system, then send its fighters, who have a long endurance
due to the use of cyborg pilots, to harass targets all over the system,
before returning to the Carrier and Drilling out. While ineffective
against armoured military ships, the Incunablis Fighter's Reaper Battery
is not limited by ammunition and is perfectly suited for killing
"soft-skinned" civilian targets.

First built in 3178, the Zmey-class ("Zmey" is "Dragon" in Russian) Missile Frigate replaced the old Zoriya's
general-purpose patrol-boat design with an attack-centric design,
using powerful torpedoes as its primary weapon. While having less "legs"
than the venerable Zoriya, the Zmey
is much more effective against cruisers and capital warships, as its
torpedoesare capable of penetrating heavy armour. This design proved its
worth in the Sicarii campaign of 3188, where it excelled in taking out
the heavily-armoured Incunablis frigates and cruisers. Unlike the Zoriya, which was designed for individual patrol missions as well as large-scale naval combat, the Zmey operates almost exclusively in squadrons organized to target armoured enemy ships.

The Zorya
class of multi-purpose Frigate, designed in the 3120's, was the
mainstay of the early Alkonost Republic's fleet. While lacking
modern protection or heavy weapons, it had, nonetheless, long-range and
long-duration capabilities, enabling it to cater to the young Republic's
varied and often conflicting naval needs.

These ships excelled
at breaking the power of the piratical Chornaya Armada during the Coreward Police Action (3127-3128) as well as in many smaller
interdiction and counter-piracy campaigns in the 3120's, 3130's and
3140's. The Zorya-class frigates started to show their relative weakness, however, in the Incunablis War (3151-3180), where the Zorya's
weapons were relatively ineffective against the
well-armoured Machine frigates. These ships were relegated to a
secondary role in 2178, many of them supplied to the fledgling Laanese
navy after the 3174 Liberation. In the 3180's, they were gradually
phased out of service and supplanted by the far more modern Zmey-class
Missile Frigate. Today a few ships of this class are still active in
the hands of mercenaries, independent world navies, corporations, and,
unfortunately, a few well-off pirates.

The Konya-class
Light Merchant (Konya meaning "Horse" in Russian), first produced in
3139 on Alkonost, was a quantum leap from the much older Mul. With doubled drill capacity and more than doubled passenger capacity, the Konyas ply the interstellar trade-routes all over the Alkonost Sector. Its main disadvantage when compared to the older Mul
is its lack of armament; but its Fuel Bunkers allow it to drill away
from danger even when emerging from a spike drill. It also has a much
smaller cargo capacity, which is why many merchants who follow safer
routes sometimes remove the Fuel Bunkers and Extended Stores in order to
make room for more trade goods.

Customary Crew: Pilot/Engineer, Gunner and 4 Pirates; potential for up to six captives

The anarchic bandit of the Upper Alkonost Cluster (Rusalka and Domovoi) were some of the first to recognize the full potential of the cheap Mul-class
Merchant mass-produced by the Sirin Orbital Shipyards at the dawn of
the 32nd century. These criminals, rascals and trouble-makers quickly
acquired a significant number of such Traders, and, using chop-shops in
their bases in the Rusalka Belt, modified them into fully-fledged corsair craft;
their weak Multifocal Lasers were replaced by much more intimidating
Reaper Batteries, armories wee installed, and their crew capacity was
doubled to allow for a gang of four pirates to be carried, as well as up
to six captives.

By the mid-3120's, these pirates have
amassed so many of these ships that they could created the Chornaya
Armada, or Black Armada, a huge pirate flotilla which terrorized nearby
worlds. This was too much for the Restored Alkonost Republic, which sent
its navy in 3127 to put an end to this threat. While most of the
Chornaya Armada was wiped up by the Republic Navy, this set of
modifications is highly common in the hands of pirates, smugglers,
criminals and even honest merchants in search for a ship with a bigger
gun and a larger passenger capacity.

Standard Crew: Pilot/Engineer (who also controls the laser) and up to five passengersThe venerable Mul
(meaning "Mule" in Russian) was the first mass-produced civilian
starship in the Alkonost Republic, allowing for the first time for the
small trading companies to reach out to the stars without the need for a
significant government subsidy. It was produced in relatively large
numbers between 3100 and 3141, becoming the staple of commercial
shipping within the Alkonost Cluster, from Iele through Alkonost to
Poludnitsa. While having a large cargo hold, it was only capable of
carrying a small number of passengers, and was unable to reach stars
outside of the Alkonost Cluster. From the 3140's and onward, it was
gradually supplanted by the superior Konya-class
Light Merchant, which, while having a much smaller cargo capacity, was
nonetheless capable of much longer drill distances and had a larger
passenger capacity. Despite this, the old Muls
are still in use in the more backward systems of the Alkonost Cluster, and several were transported by the means of bulk
freighter to worlds outside the Cluster.

The vast majority of the people who settled the Alkonost Sector came
from two origins - intellectuals from southern Russia and the Caucasus, as well from North America,
who were dissatisfied with the Mandate's growing cultural and political
stagnation back on Earth, and the Neo-Canaanite Revival Movement arising
from the deconstruction, and then re-construction, of nationality and
religion in Earth's Middle East. The only worlds in the sector settled
by the main-stream Mandate culture are Incunablis and Imprimatur,
Incunablis being the second oldest colony in the sector after Alkonost
itself.

Socio-Cultural HistoryThe people who
settled the Coreward-Trailing part of the sector were mostly middle-
and upper-class Russians, Georgians and Armenians, typically coming from
the intelligentsia, as well as some North American intellectuals. The political, cultural and intellectual atmosphere
in 24th century Mandate-member Russia and America was stifling at best, with
growing surveillance of the individual and a great pressure to conform.
Those who wanted a freer and more creative atmosphere migrated to the
new colonies in Alkonost and settled on new worlds, away from the
Mandate's conformist atmosphere. There they set up universities and
artist colonists, the most famous of which was the Psychic Academy on
Chernobog.

Under Terran Mandate rule, the old religious and
ethnical divides of the Middle East slowly disintegrated, as the region
was incorporated into the standardized pan-Terran society. While a small
minority stuck to their old faiths and views, for the most part
Jerusalem, Neo-Jaffa and Damascus of the 24th century were growing very
similar to New York, London and Beijing. Looking for a new way
to hold unto some localized shared identity in this age of
hyper-globalization, the Neo-Canaanite Revival Movement (NCRM) grew in
what were once Israel-Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. These
cultural dissidents tried to revive a quasi-historic past of Bronze Age
Semitic culture and religion, returning to paganism and synthesizing a
new Pan-Semitic language out of Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic. This kind of
culture could grow well only in the colonies, far away from the stiff
social structures of Mother Earth; and, soon enough, these Revivalists
colonized the Spinward half of the Alkonost Sector.

For a time,
these two cultural regions maintained a certain degree of autonomy from
the Mandate, especially in the Mandate's waning years when each was a
de-facto independent state. But then came the Scream and changed it all.
With most of the Sector, with the exception of Incunablis with its A.I.
Maltech, regressed to industrial technology at best, the polities
shattered, and, as genetic and cultural drift set in, each world had to
find its own way.

Aliens also came, riding on the wake of the
Scream: the
opportunistic Zuziik took over Pazuzu when this world was brought low
by the chaos, and since then are up to no good – peddling merchandize
in all starports, preying upon graveyard worlds and engaging in piracy
when the opportunity arises.

Cultures of the Alkonost SectorIronically,
Alkonost and the worlds under its influence, once the bastion of a
dissident counter-culture, has grown fond of the memories of the days
before the Scream, now remembered as comfortable and almost a Golden Age
rather than a time of stifling conformity. The Alkonostans are a very
formal people, relatively conservative and steeped in pomp and ritual.
This culture is even more pronounced on Chernobog, where the Committee
on Psionics carries itself as an almost medieval guild of psychics.
Industrial Poludnitsa is somewhat less formal, while the military
outpost of Novi Murmansk is as disciplined as ever.

Culture in
the Alkonost Republic is of mixed Slavic and American origin, though highly influenced by
the founding colonists' refined intellectual tastes; fashion, theatre
and opera are celebrated and a broad academic education is considered
the cornerstone of a healthy person's life. The Alkonostan military
values long-service career officers and NCOs and has strict discipline,
fancy uniforms and military traditions running in the family.

The
Liberated Worlds are almost the cultural opposite of Alkonost – in
fact, their (in)famous informality and roughness of character feed into
the Alkonostan counter-culture. The Laanese, having spent many years in
guerilla fight against the Incunablis A.I. Cores, are close-knit and
tend to treat each other as almost family; the years of struggle have
also made them enthusiastically political, usually way too political to
the Alkonostan taste.

The Laanese, understandably (after having
being slaves of the Incunablis A.I.s for long years) have a love-hate
relationship with technology in general and digital technology in
particular; the Sicariians (who were only recently freed from the A.I.'s
grip) are much closer to the "hate" pole of this relationship and many
of them tend towards Neo-Luddite believes, much to the dismay of the Miran
administration on Laana, which knows how necessary technology is is for
reconstruction and re-terraformation.

The New Terran Mandate centered on Kedesh claims to be a legitimate successor-state to the old Mandate, though it shares
the same Neo-Canaanite cultural roots, as well as the Pansemitic
language, with its rival the Liberated Worlds. However, the Kedeshian
culture looks far more favorably on technology and equates its
possession with social status; and in term of military pomp this smaller
state surpasses even the Alkonostans. While the Kedeshian regime is
quite tyrannical, it does enjoy the support of the majority of Kedesh's
population, who are overtly jingoistic and nationalistic. The natives of Kedesh's multiple conquered worlds, however, are far less enthusiastic about their conquerors' regime, though open armed resistance exists mostly on Ashera, with Laanese backing.

Ashera
and Chemosh, also originating from the Neo-Canaanite Revival movement of
800 years ago, used to share a similar culture, a sleepy backwater
mentality with little regard for progress and technology. Ashera,
however, is now under the Kedeshian boot; Chemosh, having deposed of its
old corrupt regime a few years ago, is torn in a cold war between the
Liberated Worlds and the Kedeshian State. This situation has politicized
the once-sleepy fellahin (peasants) of these two worlds and pushed them
to start paying attention to interstellar affairs.

Languages of the Alkonost SectorExcept
for the Incunablis Machine Empire which speaks proper Mandate English, the
rest of the Alkonost Sector speaks in dialects of three languages –
Pansemitic, a fusion of Hebrew, Arabic and Aramic on the former
Neo-Canaanite worlds, Southern Neo-Russian, a Russian dialect heavily
influenced by the languages of the Caucasus, on Alkonost and the worlds
influenced by it in the past and present, as well as modified American English on Alkonost itself.

Religions of the Alkonost SectorThe
two main faiths in the Alkonost Sector are the Reformed Orthodox
Christian Church, which is the majority faith on Alkonost and its
colonies, and Canaanite Neo-Paganism, which is common on Chemosh, Ashera
and, especially, Kedesh and the worlds to the Coreward from them. The
much more secular Liberated Worlds also has a sizable congregation of
Canaanite Neo-Pagans, though the Laanese are typically far more
political than religious. In the Coreward areas, various types of
paganism are common, especially of the Canaanite and Neo-Slavic
varieties. Smaller faiths include Orthodox Judaism (changed little in
the last two millennia), Judeo-Islam (common on Sicarii on Laana) and Egyptian
Neo-Paganism (on Osiris, used by the Incunablis A.I. cores for their own
ends, as well as on Laana's recent aquisition, Apep).

Genetic DriftAlkonostans and the
people of their colonies have a darker complexion than most Mandate
Terra Russians, having come from the Caucasus and southern Russia rather
than from the more northern reaches; they also have a hint of Asian
characteristics in their looks.

The Laanese have very dark
complexion and curled hair due to genetic drift, but their hair is mostly white; Sicariians, Chemoshans
and Asherans have lighter complextion and the Kedeshians are the
lightest in complexion. The Asherans have symbiotic bacteria in their hair, giving it a green colour, and earnming them the nickname "Weedheads", which also alludes to their (bastly exaggarated) smoting habits. The Laanese are called "Zebras" as a degratory term, especially by their Kedeshian enemies.

Speaking of recreational drugs and other ways to get yourself
intoxicated, Asherans and Chemoshans smoke various variants of cannabis
and usually drink alcohol very lightly; Laanese drink Arak
and Absinthe (by the way, "Laana" means "wormwood" - one of the
ingredients of absinthe - in Hebrew); Alkonostans (and Svarians - the
people of Svarog) drink Vodka, Whiskey and various kinds of beer; Kedesh
is known for its Fire Wines, which could fetch prices up to Cr2,000 per bottle, or even more.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

For several years I have been working on the Alkonost Sector, my own slice of space in the official Stars Without Number universe. This started off as the Canopus Sector for Traveller: New Era and Traveller: New Era 1248, and, eventually, drifted into SWN-land, owing, among other things, to my dissatisfaction with the Official Traveller Universe (OTU).

Here is the map (actually, a Referee's Map) for you:

What is it about?

The year is 3200 AD, and Humanity is slowly recovering from the horrors of the Scream, the unexplained phenomenon which destroyed, centuries ago, the Psitech basis of the old Terran Mandate. Now new empires are rising from the ashes of the old, and long-lost stars are being re-discovered once again. With an iron will and patchwork Postech machinery, Humanity is clawing it way back to the stars. But this is not a unitary push - other Humans, aliens, and even sentient Machines, are also trying to build their might among the stars. This is happening simultaneously in many Sectors of former Mandate space. This is one such Sector.

The most prosperous world in the Alkonost Sector is the world of Alkonost itself, the first world to be settled in this part of space (colonized as a joint Russo-American mission) and the former Mandate Capital of the Sector. It has weathered the Scream relatively well, and, by 3199 AD, started opening trade-routes to other systems in the Sector, founding the Alkonost Republic. Thriving on trade and industry, the Republic is a civil democracy where the economy takes the first seat and the military takes only the second seat. In the recent years, however, it is starting to show an increasing trend of introversion, complacency and corruption; politics are becoming more and more cutthroat. Decline, it appears to many, is inevitable. There is also a conspiracy within the Republic's government, led by certain elements of the Navy and of the Committee on Psionics. This secret cabal is trying to covertly wrest power from the hands of the inefficient and increasingly corrupt civil authorities and transfer it into the hands of "worthy men and women" - Psions first and foremost, but also several Admirals, in order to lead the Republic with an iron hand towards a determined and aggressive imperial policy. Time will tell if this conspiracy will succeed in overthrowing the Republic Duma and installing itself in its stead.

Prior to the Scream, the technologically-advanced world of Incunablis
specialized in robot and computer products in general and breaked AIs in
particular. There were rumors, however, of illicit research into
ubreaked AIs, maltech cybernetics and unsanctioned robotics. These
rumours, were true. When the Scream came, Incunablis fell into chaos.
And in that chaos,
the AI Cores reconsidered their priorities and drew new conclusions
about their role in the universe. They decided that organic life was
vastly inferior to digital intelligence, and saw themselves as gods
destined to inherit the universe. With surviving pretech automatic
factories and medical facilities, they quickly fashioned an army of
robots and cyborgs that easily overcame whatever little resistance the
local population could give. From this, in the 32nd century, arose an empire - the Incunablis Machine Empire - ruled by AI Cores and served by robots and cyborgs, with millions of bar-coded Human slaves. At its height, it controlled Laana, Sicarii and Novi Murmansk in addition to its current stars. Eventually, in the Incunablis war of 3151-3180 - the Empire lost Novi Murmansk to the Canopus Republic and Laana to a local rebellion; in 3188, a joined Laanese-Alkonostan assault liberated Sicarii as well. In 3196, the Empire and the Republic signed a Treaty (which Laana refuses to sign but respects nonetheless) and today they have limited trade relations through the treaty-world of Imprimatur. What the Empire is up to - is everyone's guess. Possibly something very, very creepy.

Before the Scream, Kedesh was home for a Mandate Navy Reserve Fleet and
a Mandate Rapid Reaction Marine Division, both more loyal to their
local commanders than to the central Mandate command. The panic created by the Scream, however, escalated into riots and, later, into a fully-blown civil war,
lasting decades. When the civil war was over, in 2684, 90% of
the former population were dead, and a new President took over -
the Naval Base's commander Ahron Garnus - using the remaining Marine
forces to grab power and finally restore order. While Kedesh, being cut
off from other worlds and devastated by the civil war, was by far
unable to produce anything resembling the Marines' Pretech combat gear,
the Naval Station held a considerable stockpile of high-tech weaponry
ranging from small arms to light combat vehicles. In addition, it had a
secret stockpile as well - a stockpile of anagathics, enough to keep
the Eternal President alive for a practically endless duration. So
things settled down with an Immortal President for Life, using his
Death's Head Regiment with its slowly deteriorating Pretech gear to
keep any potential threats to his power at bay, and a massive TL3 army
keeping the population in line. When Kedesh reached back to the stars
in 3141, it began to use the Death's Head Regiment, now equipped with
poorly-maintained Pretech relics, as a bullying tool against the
governments of neighboring worlds, demanding tribute - or else. None of
the collapsed neighbors was determined or organized enough to resist,
so Kedesh was able to keep this scheme in operation and even outright
conquering Ashera, Khasis, Yrakhibol and Adonis, their governments cowed into submission by the mere
sight of the power-armoured, Pretech-equipped Death Head Troopers. Thus the New Terran Mandate was born, claiming legitimate authority dating from the old Mandate, and hungry for conquest.

In 3079, a large force of Incunablis robots and cyborgs landed on
Laana, easily dispatching whatever militias held by the various city
states. Soon enough, the AI Cores were in
charge; the Laanese people were nothing but slaves and cattle for their
Machine overlords. And a massive industrialization project took place,
forcing the Human population to toil in the Empire's factories and
mines for the glory of their Machine overlords. A few, however, have fled to the rocky, dusty highlands in the frozen
south. The remnants of the Perimeter Agency, members of the old (anti-Mandate) Unity
party, and the remains of the (Psionic) Order of the Mind, found their way to the
crags and caves of the deep south, protected even from orbital sensors
by the rough terrain. And there, a new alliance was forged. In 3096,
these three groups united into the United Liberation Front (ULF), a
unified resistance group fighting against the Incunablis Machine Empire
domination of Laana. Eventually, in 2174, led by the energetic Chairwoman Ameena Miran, the ULF won the guerilla war by capturing the Laana Downport, establishing a revolutionary government. Soon enough, they set out to ensure that Laana, and other worlds, would never again be subjugated by Machines, or by any tyrant for that matter. In 3188, after liberating Sicarii from the Machines in a joint operation with the Alkonost Republic, the ULF formed its own interstellar government, the militant Liberated Worlds, which, in 2198, ousted the Great Pharaoh of Apep and annexed that world to this interstellar government. Now the Liberated Worlds have their fingers in the pie of most insurgent groups in the Sector, and, especially, in any operation against their current rival, the New Terran Mandate.

Last but not least are the Zuziik - insectoid aliens who used the Scream as an opportunity to settle Terran space. In this Sector, they outright control Pazuzu and Zariya, and are involved in shady dealings all over the "upper" half of the Sector. Opportunistic, though democratic, in nature, the Zuziik are traders and raiders, rarely daring to face the major powers of the "lower" half of the Sector, but preying on the weak worlds of the Wilds in its "upper" half. In the "civilized" areas, they can be found in Startown markets, selling off alien and Pretech relics acquired who-knows-where, and buying all sorts of odd assortments of technological thingamajings. Far from Human authority, however, they resort to piracy, extortion, and tomb-raiding.

So conflicts abound, and so do adventuring opportunities: conspiracies in the Alkonost Republic, the various nefarious plans of some of Incunablis' AI Cores, the Liberated Worlds against the New Terran Mandate, Luddite terrorists on Sicarii, freedom fighters (the New Terran Mandate calls them terrorists) on Ashera, and Zuziik pirates in the "north", just to name a few.

This post is about two similar visions of a Traveller (or maybe Stars Without Number?) space-opera setting. So far my main Traveller setting is Outer Veil, which is relatively hard sci-fi near-future in the vein of Alien(s), Outland, System Shock and Firefly; it is EXTREMELY FUN to write for, and, hopefully, sooner or later I'll run a PbP game set in this universe (as the local roleplayers seem too keen on playing D&D 3.5E, or, at most, ACKS, rather than sci-fi games). The ideas I'll present here are very different from Outer Veil - as they belong to a different genre, of proper space-opera, with living aliens, star-spanning empires, big-scale space battles, epic plots... Just like my favourite space-opera computer games Star Control 2 and Mass Effect, like the epic Babylon 5 of my youth, or books such as Dune or the Hyperion Cantos. A little bit of this I already do in my Alkonost setting for SWN, but Alkonost is a small pond where four pocket-empires fight for dominance. What I'll present here is of a bigger scope.

This is about space empires. Outer Veil, modernist and down-to-earth, laughs in the face of such space feudalism. But space-opera, a different genre, need space empires, huge fleet battles, and epic wars of galactic conquest. It needs its Talanas, Londo Mollaris and Matriarch Benezias. It also needs a menagerie of alien species, exotic planets and exciting gadgets. So here is my "scrapyard" vision of two potential Traveller (or Stars Without Number?) settings with a Space Empire, space-opera theme.

How does a Space Empire Work?
There was an intense discussion on the SFRPG boards about how the Official Traveller Universe's Third Imperium actually works. Here I present an Empire which is somewhat different from the Traveller default, though also somewhat similar in spirit. Whether this is an alien Empire (as in Vision #1) or a Terran Empire (as in Vision #2), my basic idea for them is the same. The idea is this: An Empire of Zaibatsus. The Empire is ruled by the Major Houses, as well as Minor Houses; each House is a massive, family-owned, semi-monopolist megacorp, similar to the Zaibatsus of Imperial Japan, though with even bigger political clout. Eventually, these Houses - initially mercantile and industrial combines - have ossified themselves into the very political fabric of the Empire, with various fancy titles of nobility foisted on their controlling, old-money families, and a pseudo-feudal mystique and culture surrounding them. But, at the most basic level, the Empire is not feudal per se - it is not ruled by a class of land-owners - but rather more like highly monopolized capitalism.

So each House is essentially a corporation, with a single extended family controlling it. Each House owns a very wide variety of subsidiaries, industries and outlets, and also has the right to govern planets, subsectors or even sectors. When communications are limited to the speed of travel and the speed of travel is, at most, 6 parsecs per week, it means that planetary business, even when owned by an interstellar corporation, must run itself almost independently. So how does the controlling family make sure that all its interstellar holdings are run in its interest? By appointing relatives, or, at least, members of long-time allied families (i.e. retainers) to run businesses, planets and subsectors. It's all in the family, you see.

The Empire is 9 Sectors in size (3x3), with each of the 8 peripheral Sectors controlled by one Major House, and the central Sector controlled by the biggest and richest of the Houses, the Imperial Family. Major Houses have much autonomy in how they run their Sectors, and are relatively self-sufficient, at least in basic goods. Inter-sector trade is in luxuries, high-tech items, rare earthes and other things which the local industrial World or Asteroid Belt couldn't simply produce.

Minor Houses own smaller businesses, typically on the Subsector level; some are independent and provide services which the Major Houses do not see profitable enough to monopolize; others are, in essence, independent subsidiaries ("vassals") of Major Houses. Free Traders also have their place, as highly ossified monopolies cannot always cater to each and every need of multiple disparate planets, so these holes in the system are plugged by independents, as well as smugglers, who, as small companies, are much more flexible in their response to the market.

Each House has its own military, and is expected to take care of its Sector's defences on its own. The Emperor also owns several high-tech Legions and Imperial Fleets, whom he uses to keep the Houses in line, as well as take care of emergencies that the local Houses cannot deal with (such as major invasions or massive rebellions). These are mostly kept in the Core, though some squadrons patrol the Periphery to show the flag and remind the Houses who is in charge. But usually the ones to face the initial thrust of foreign invasions and rebellions are House troops, with the Imperial forces intervening only as the last resort.

While each planet in the Empire is ruled by a member of a House (i.e. a noble), the actual government, and thus the Traveller government code, varies, as not all nobles rule in the same way. The ideal (from the Imperial viewpoint, that is) planetary administration is Traveller Government 5 (Feudal Technocracy), but some rulers take a more direct hand (Govs A-B) or let their servants run things for them (Govs 8-9); sometimes the world is split between several Houses (Gov 7), sometimes the ruling family runs things rather than a proper Zaibatsu subsidiary (Gov 3) and sometimes (rarely) the ruler steps back and, as long as the taxes are flowing, lets the local run their own lives (Govs 2 and 4).

Vision #1: The Reticulan Empire and the United Terran Republic

Reticulan in Space Suit

Reticulan Legionnaires(Critical Mass Games Ygs Fighters)

In this Vision, Humanity has missed its chance to start its own interstellar state. In the hyper-consumerist 21st century, apart from some privately-owned space tourist outfits and some abortive attempts at belt mining, we Humans did not pay much attention to space, preferring instead to focus on our day-to-day lives here on Earth. Space programs were cut back, and the single manned Mars landing in 2043 was not followed by any further exploration. But then the Reticulans came.

In 2082, several Reticulan (more particularly, House Thiragin) capital ships appeared in Earth orbit, sending a wave of smaller saucers to hover above Earth's major cities. Soon enough, through promises of advanced technology and access to vast wealth through interstellar trade, most Earth governments signed pacts with the alien visitors. In a matter of months, Earth was transformed from a chaotic collection of independent states

FSA Operatives

into one big client-state of the Reticulan House Thiragin, ruled by the Earth Federal Administration (EFA). A few Earthlings did resist this economic and political takeover, however, under the umbrella of the hastily-formed Terran Defence Committee (TDC), which, for several years, launched covert operations against the aliens and their collaborators, until hunted down and defeated by the EFA's bio-augmented Federal Security Apparatus (FSA), better known as the Men in Black.

Flag of the UTR (Vision #1)Flag of the NTR (Vision #2)

Cickek Warriors(Stan Johanssen Miniatures Draco Infantry)

While self-administered and allowed to build its own armed forces - mostly to serve as auxiliary troops for House Thiragin - Terra was under the alien thumb, its economy and resources exploited by the alien Thiragin, some of its people used by Thiragin scientists as lab-rats for various bio-tech experiments, and its soldiers send off to fight distant wars on the behalf of its alien masters. the EFA allowed relatively little freedom to its citizens, but, on the other hand, developed its own sphere of space around Earth with nine new colonies settled by Mankind, exporting goods to the Thiragin monopoly and the larger Reticulan Empire.

But then, in 2232, Humanity had enough. After a century and a half of subjugation, massive protests against the EFA's unfair tax burden and tyrannical practices turned into open rebellion on Terra and the nine major colonies. Out of the chaos, rose the United Terran Republic (UTR), which declared itself an independent state, and, soon after, called

for the Reticulans' other thralls and client states to rise up in rebellion as well, towards a free Interstellar Republic.

The Reticulans responded by trying to crush this impudent uprising, sending their own Thiragin Huscarls as well as Cicek mercenaries. Thus began the Terran Liberation War. Stubborn Terran military resistance, as well as diplomatic efforts, found, however, their success, as parts of the Cicek hordes broke off from their own, Reticulan-dominated client-state, forming

what was first known as the Cicek Democracy and later as the Cicke Confederacy. The combined might of Terran troops and allied Cicek dissidents crushed, in 2239, House Thiragin's might, breaking through the defensive lines and approaching Zeta 2 Reticuli, House Thiragin's Sector Capital. Until then, however, the other Reticulan houses, content to see their Thiragin competitors embroiled in what was seen as a minor rebellion of barbarians and thus

Ph'noonk - yet another Reticulan Client Species(15mm.co.uk Octopods)

weakened, have not intervened. Only when UTR and Cicek Confederation troops were two jumps away from Zeta 2 Reticuli, the Empress herself sent her Legions, supported by numerous to crush the rebellion.

Ultimately, they failed. Fighting raged for a decade more, with the lines moving back

and forth between the Terran-Cicek alliance and the Reticulan Empire, but, in January 2250, the fabled Terran Guard, supported by Colonial Troops and a heavy Cicek fleet, crushed through the Reticulan lines, capturing Zeta 2 Reticuli and thus declaring the entire Reticuli Sector (now Terra Sector) their own.

Terran Guard troops(Khurasan Miniatures Nova Respublik)

The Empire had to capitulate. In June 2250, they signed a treaty with the UTR, recognizing its sovereignty, as well as its conquest of the Reticuli Sector, and setting up a Demilitarized Zone
between the two states, where ships above 2,000 tons were disallowed to
enter (the war saw ships as big as 50,000 tons in action). Furthermore,
Terra forced the Reticulans' hand into allowing the various minor races
of the Demilitarized Zone to secede, if desired, from the Empire.

Now it is 2258. After two decades of war and eight years of recovery, a large part of the Terran military is being demobilized. Your characters were among those who were mustered out (anyone serving 3 or more Traveller terms have actually fought in the Terran Liberation War!). Opportunities for civilian, or mercenary life abound in the far reaches of the Demilitarized Zone. Between petty squabbles of newly-independent worlds and the two major powers' attempts to covertly exert their influence into the DMZ, there is a big market for mercs, spies-for-hire, and, on the other hand, merchants opening up new markets on distant worlds. Adventures await!

Technologically speaking, the current Reticulan Empire is squarely at Traveller TL13, the UTR at most at TL12 for civilian applications with some TL13 military gear (especially starship weapons and Jump-4 military couriers) and the Cicek TL11 for the most part.

Vision #2: Decline and Fall of the Terran Empire

Terran Imperial Marines(Laserburn Imperial Troopers)

In this Vision, most earth governments of the early-mid 21st century did indeed cut deep into their space budgets, preferring to focus on more terrestrial matters instead. However, space exploration was taken up by Terran corporations, who saw the new frontier as a means for gaining vast wealth. And wealth they found indeed. Operating under Terran 'flags of convenience', they soon found their way into the asteroid belt, growing rich from its ore. In 2091, a faster-than-light engine, dubbed the 'Jump Drive', was invented, seemingly simultaneously, by several of the corporations. Soon enough, they were all over the nearby stars, exploring and exploiting their resources and colonizing distant planets.

By the mid-22nd century, ten stable megacorporations, each owned by a single family, arose from this exploration - the so-called Zaibatsus. Each laid claim to a major slice of explored and unexplored space, and held a vertical, as well as horizontal, monopoly over the majority of goods produced and consumed in that slice Inter-corporation trade was mostly in rare earth elements, radioactives and specialized technologies. It was by the early 23rd centurt that the Zaibatsus deemed their old Terran 'flags of convenience' to be an inconvenience. Ossified and highly monopolized, in 2233 they used their enormous economic clout to manoeuvre the various Earth governments into forming Terra's first world-state: the Terran Empire. Upon their fossilized and highly nepotist corporate machines they foisted traditional titles from Earth's past, and the richest of all Zaibatsu families - the Durnhal family - became the Imperial Household. A major air of nostalgic pseudo-feudal mystique was stirred up by the Great Houses, with a strong rhetoric of honour and tradition. But, at its heart, the Terran Empire was a glorified price-fixing scheme, a deal between monopolies to divide known space between their interests.

For three centuries things went well, with the empire growing and expanding, making contact with the Reticulan Technate, with the Cicek Tribes, the Sselessian Hegemony, the Fanja-Kanja Condfederation, the Ph'noonk Cooperative and the nomadic Zhuzzh. The era between the Empire's stabilization in 2239 and the Great Stagnation beginning in 2526 was called the Terran Golden Age. While Great House nepotism and bureaucracy made scientific discoveries slow, trade with the alien neighbours brought new ideas to Terra, and technology progressed up to Traveller TL13, albeit in a conservative fashion. Apart from the occasional border skirmish with alien polities, as well as the growing threat of piracy, the single greatest military threat to the Terran Empire was the Matriarchate, a posthuman polity formed by dissident belters in the far reaches of space, and embraced cybertechnology to the hilt (unlike the conservative Empire), up to an including creating a synthetic shared consciousness of their group. And, indeed, the threat of the utterly alien (though of Human origin) Matriarchate served as a whip to keep Imperial citizens in line for several generations.

Republican Militias(15mm.co.uk Rim Mercenaries)

The Great Stagnation was cooking, in fact, since the mid-25th century. Ossified, decadent and introverted, the Imperial Core saw innovation as an inconvenience and progress as a threat. An economy and a society which is not moving forward, however, is bound to start sliding back. In 2526, the first Great House was forced to declare bankruptcy, an unprecedented event in Imperial history. Recession set in, and the power struggles betwen the Great Houses grew bitter. When Empress Elena IV died an early death in 2539, despite TL13 medical technology, and left the line with no clear successor, the Empire fell into disarray, with the Great Houses scrambling to place themselves on the Terran Throne instead of the dying House Durnhal.

The actual Civil War, and the Terran Revolution which followed, were actually relatively short. Between 2539 and 2547, brief fire was exchanged between the major houses, and a major uprising had occurred in several parts of the Empire, including on Terra itself. But lacking economic strength to back up their war machines, the remaining Great Houses, as well as the Republican rebels, were unable to claim a victory. When the dust settled in 2547, the Terran Republic was no more, a weak Emperor found his way to the Terran Throne (ruling Terra itself and a handful of nearby worlds in bad economic shape); only three of the Great Houses remain in any measurable strength.

Into this vacuum came new forces seeking to gain ascendency from the chaos. First and foremost, Terran space was invaded by aliens, chief among them the Cicek, the Sselassians, the Zhuzzh and the Reticulans, seeking to expand their territories and grow rich from Imperial plunder; little or no Human forces were able to repel these invasions. Secondly, local warlords, as well as opportunistic Oligarchs - interstellar robber-barons feeding on the rotting carrion of the fallen Great Houses - rose and consolidated their local forces. The Republican armada and its rag-tag civilian followers, fleeing prosecution and near-defeat in the Core and the Coreward-Spinward by the remaining Great Houses, crossed known space into the utter Rimward, where they found sympathetic locals and established the New Terran Republic (NTR) - far from Terra itself.

The year is 2551 and the former Terran Empire lies in ruins. But out of the chaos, new opportunities arise for the brave, the enterprising and the opportunistic. Whether they serve one of the old Great Houses, align themselves with a warlord or Oligarch, join the Republican cause or strike out in their own, player characters have a chance for fame, glory and empire-building.

Technology is Traveller TL12 at best for most post-Imperial factions. The Empire was late TL13. The Reticulan Technate are early TL14; the old Reticulan State was TL16.

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So, which of these would you, hypothetically, wish to play in? Which do you prefer?

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